Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mmintl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!zehntel!vlsvax1!qantel!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Apartheid on the West Bank (defining racism)
Message-ID: <848@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Dec-85 17:22:25 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.848
Posted: Sat Dec  7 17:22:25 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 06:27:32 EST
References: <4188@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <360@ubvax.UUCP> <614@unc.unc.UUCP> <366@ubvax.UUCP> <167@ucbjade.BERKELEY.EDU> <260@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 46


In article <260@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:
>I think we spoil a useful term if we blur the distinction between
>racism and prejudice or bigotry.  Some time ago I posted a number of
>definitions of racism from dictionaries and encyclopedias, and the
>general idea seemed to be that racism is an ideology or belief-system
>which holds that an ethnic group is innately inferior, intellectually
>and/or morally, to one's own, and which has the function of
>justifying keeping this group in a subordinate position in society.
>Thus if an American black says, "All honkies are alike.  You can't
>trust them -- they'll get you every time," his statement is
>prejudiced and bigoted, but not racist, properly speaking, because
>his views are not part of an ideology which justifies "keeping whites
>in their [subordinate] place."  
>
>Prejudice is perhaps a universal phenomenon in human history, but
>racism is perhaps a phenomenon of modern history.  It arose as a
>result of the domination of black peoples through enslavement and
>colonialism.  We tend to forget that racist views were considered
>respectable (among whites) in the 19th century and before.  How else
>could such an enlightened man as Jefferson have been a slaveowner?
>Racism, then, is not just a disposition to prejudge people by their
>color or ethnicity -- it also includes an ideological component (the
>supposed innate inferiority of the group, their having smaller
>brains, a "backward" culture, etc.) to lend intellectual and moral
>respectability to domination.

I think you are wrong on a couple of counts.  First, I don't think
your distinction between racism and bigotry reflects a real distinction.
The attitudes are exactly the same; it is only the opportunity to
put them into practice which is different.  Reverse the power relation-
ships, and the persecutees become the persecutors.

I also don't think this sort of thing is in any way a modern phenomenon.
I would have class the ancient Egyptian attitudes toward the Israelites
as racist.  I believe most if not all ancient cultures had an underclass
of slaves, which were culturally and often racially distinct, and were
regarded as inferior.  (Don't bother telling me that some slaves in
such cultures were able to buy their freedom, and that some were held
in high regard.  The mass of slaves in such cultures were conquered
peoples, and freedom was virtually impossible for them.)

It is the idea that people of different races are *not* inferior that
is of modern origin.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108